Sky Falls Down
A Power Ballad for the Trump Era
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DANIELLE DECKARD
‘SKY FALLS DOWN’
New single out today
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Released on 13 July 2018, “Sky Falls Down” is the third single from the forthcoming album Happy by Sydney-based indie-pop artist Danielle Deckard.
Danielle composed “Sky Falls Down” as a reaction to the 2016 Pulse Nightclub Shooting in Orlando, Florida, at which 49 venue-goers were killed and 53 others wounded – making it the deadliest incident of violence against LGBTQI+ people in US history. The song is an appropriately aggressive take on the power ballad for 2018, targeted at those who oppose gun reform and social progress.
“Sky Falls Down” criticises the normalisation of violent acts against minority groups – urging everyone to understand that “we all love the same”. The song also challenges conservatives’ stubborn unwillingness to change, despite overwhelming evidence that change is necessary – “I will ask you then, is it worth it when the sky falls down?”.
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Every track on Danielle’s forthcoming Happy album draws sonic and aesthetic inspiration from the early 1980s, and “Sky Falls Down” develops this theme with a powerful synthesiser orchestration that hurls the listener into a dark, yet colourful, soundscape. A sparse, punchy Juno synthesiser riff springs off a driving drum machine pattern. The song’s bridge introduces a deep synth pad and Vangelis-esque lead. Danielle’s vocals, cloaked in a mysterious non-linear reverb, float wistfully above the track, trading lines with a nostalgic robot-voiced choir.
The song does not follow the verse/chorus structure that is typical of most modern pop songs. Instead, it utilises the AABA form, a classic song structure used commonly in the early 20th Century and found in much of the Great American Songbook. Without a chorus, the refrain “when the sky falls down” acts as the song’s lyrical and melodic hook.
The song’s music video, directed by frequent collaborator and notable Sydney director Jefferton James (Boy And Bear, Josh Pyke, Dustin Tebbutt), channels the 1980s TV show Max Headroom – a reference that is both relevant in style and substance. Max Headroom’s chaotic, anarchic world view famously inspired the Max Headroom Incident of 1987 – in which an American cable TV network was hijacked with broadcasts of a Max Headroom inspired character. Similarly, “Sky Falls Down” is an urgent call to hijack our own status quo – the normalised transmissions of bigotry and violence that we consume daily – and interrupt it with something that is more empathetic, personal, and emotional.
“Sky Falls Down” will be featured on the album Happy – to be released on 20 July 2018. Danielle will be performing an album launch in Sydney on Saturday 28 July at Waywards @ The Bank Hotel in Newtown, NSW. More details and tickets links can be found on Danielle’s website.
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HAPPY – ALBUM RELEASE
20 July 2018
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HAPPY
ALBUM LAUNCH
(w/ Anomie)
28 July 2018, 7:30 PM
Waywards @ The Bank Hotel
324 King Street, Newtown NSW Australia
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Follow DANIELLE DECKARD
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